Acts of charity

I was thinking about all the kids who are protesting their student loans today, and how so many of them have taken their $200,000+ educations (paid for by taxpayers through the student loan program) and gone into non-profit work, virtually guaranteeing that they will never repay the money. In other words, these students have appointed themselves as our agents for charitable purp0ses.

The end result is that we, the workers, don’t get to pick our charities. Instead, we pay our taxes, leaving us with little to spare, and these spoiled children, indoctrinated on our dollar, pick charities for us, usually Left wing in orientation. In other words, the new system is one of forced volunteerism. We’re forced to pay, and they get to volunteer.

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“gone into non-profit work, virtually guaranteeing that they will never repay the money”

I don’t understand this statement. Even though they go into a non-profit, they still have taxable earnings, don’t they? Non-profit means that the corporation has no profit to be distributed to owners – not that nobody gets paid. Some non-profits pay quite handsomely – in fact, they’re really a pretty good racket for someone who doesn’t want to pay taxes.

But they _do_ pay their employees, and if the employees are paid, they can pay back their loans – I assume. Is there something I’m missing here?

What you’re missing, suek, is the starvation wages that these idealistic young Leftists take for their work. You need a high paying job to pay down $250,000 in loans (or even $80,000 in loans). These kids, though, work for free or next to free. They’re materialism extends to electronics, but they don’t seem to crave the houses and cars that drove past generations to get a real job and plan for a real future.

94Corvette

They don’t need a job – they can stay at home – have health coverage through their parents, and they realize that the Government will be there to pick up the pieces if they screw up.

skullbuster

Certain areas of employment allow forgiveness of students loans. My daughter is a physician and worked for a medical research hospotal to pay hers off.

“Non-profit” doesn’t always mean low salaries. A lot of these people are going to work for “policy” think tanks and the like, with the idea of segueing into government and then into lobbying or investment banking. And salaries for the executive ranks at many nonprofits are pretty good…”nonprofit” refers to the absence of shareholders with whom the loot must be shared, not necessarily to any limitations on the salaries of those who run these things.

Also: why in hell should a loan taken out by someone who follows the conveyor-belt path and spends 18 or 20 years of seat time in school be forgiven any more than a loan taken out by someone who does something a little more contrarian and courageous and uses the loan money to start a business?

Hmm. I don’t think I made myself clear. Although I agree with everything you guys have said, I was really looking at the kids who go and work for jobs where there is no money, despite knowing that they have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to repay — and having no qualms about not repaying them. Aside from being criminal fraud in my book, this is also turning me into their sponsor for their charity of their, not my, choice.

94Corvette

This is a little off subject but here in Houston we have literally hundreds of ‘higher’ education shops where they sign up students for bogus degree programs, get them to get grants and loans, and they never have any intention of having them graduate. . . they litterally become professional students. Bad thing is that our nanny government will pay for their food stamps, day care for their children, housing assistance, etc. when in reality they will never work or pay back their loans. I have heard it said that the student loan bubble is going to be bursting soon and it’s nastier than the housing bubble ever was. . because where the housing bubble at least had some assets backing the loans, the student loan bubble only has dried ink. (Too bad we can’t just repo their brains.)

SADIE

Let me take a stab at it…

The $200,000 student loan cannot be repaid, if some of the “doo doo” heads insist on working on their “special cause.”

When said “special cause” has the ear of the WH – can you spell S-O-L-Y-N-D-R-A, we are by proxy feeding the coffers of that glass jar Bookworm posted. They will of course, default on their payments and we are doubly charged in the end … the defaulted student loan and the Solyndras. If there are other special causes, i.e. “feed the children” they should go into farming – but this same ilk would never be caught on a John Deere. It’s just so droit and they’re so gauche.

Mike Devx

Sadie said: If there are other special causes, i.e. “feed the children” they should go into farming

Soylent Green is people! Soylent Green is people!

Today I was a vegan. I had Suzanne Vega for lunch. Kinda stringy. Definitely no steroids beefing that meal up.

OK, too dark. But if they don’t repay their student loans, we *could* feed em to the pigs? Still too dark. How about chain gangs?

Do you know how many of our Founding Fathers – the signers of the Constitution – ended up in debtors prisons over the subsequent years because of speculation that collapsed or other bad investment decisions? If it was good enough for them…

Danny Lemieux

I suspect that, given the declining state of the economy, the “not-for-profit” industry is a bubble that is about to burst as well.

What will those poor, useless dears do?

kali

Danny: What will those poor, useless dears do?

Lobby the government to drive all competing non-profits out of business.

Libby

The sad thing is that a major in Women’s/African-American/Latino/Gender Studies, etc. really doesn’t qualify one for much in the real world. These majors seem tailor-made to create an army of non-profit employees and activists. I suppose the lucky ones get government jobs or jobs in academia (specializing in diversity enforcement), but their perspective has been set – they see everything as it relates to gender, race, etc. Heck, I’d never considering hiring someone with this kind of education – it seems like an invitation for a discrimination lawsuit.

If there are other special causes, i.e. “feed the children” they should go into farming

If you start a farm and make $100K/year, you are a boring money-obsessed middle class American bourgeois. If you become a railroad or trucking executive and help move food to market while earning $250K, you are one of the greedy rich capitalists.

If you become an executive of a nonprofit devoted to “food policy,” and make $250K/year, you are a noble and self-sacrificing human being.

JKB

I’ll admit I had to think about this for a bit. The more Leftist or Democrats, I repeat myself, in the non-profit, the more non-profit means that anything not spent on operations goes to perks and obscene salaries for the top people in the organization.

But it is true that these same executives exploit the young and dumb with subsistence wages and treat them like grad students.

The strange thing is these kids are so brainwashed that they can’t tie the lavish lifestyle of the top people, with the subsistence wages they get and the ineffectiveness of their programs at anything than grant harvesting.

Especially since evil capitalists like Steve Jobs or Keith Tantlinger did more to raise billions out of poverty than all the community organizers, politicians and NGOs combined. Think about it, how much cheaper and efficient can things be moved around the world with Apple’s innovations? And how many have improving lives because their products can safely trade in the world market due to containerizaiton. How much aid isn’t pilfered off the docks as it moves to countries in need?

shirleyelizabeth

When I was in college, oh so many (2.5) years ago (one loan, from my daddy, 1k, paid back long ago), I went to a show where a band “Harry and the Potters” played. Really, only dumb college kids would like them. Anyway, I got this email this morning:

We may not have any microphones, so we would seriously LOVE if you came down and helped us sing our wizard anthems. We’ll need all the vocal power we can get. Wizards Represent!!!!

Please ignore the Fox News spin. These protests are not about liberal or conservative values. They’re about the very basic idea that government should serve the people (and not the corporations). It’s about the hope that we can continue to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” In the wake of the Citizens United ruling, this idea, one of the core values of our democracy, is being eroded faster than ever. This protest movement proves that people are engaged and that they care about our country. It is our way to let the politicians know that they are beholden to the people they were elected by rather than the corporations that filled their coffers. We are thrilled to lend our support in a very small way.

Let’s show Wall Street and all those mainstream media outlets that we still give a damn about democracy even if they don’t. Let’s show them wizards and muggles standing in solidarity!

JKB: “I’ll admit I had to think about this for a bit. The more Leftist or Democrats, I repeat myself, in the non-profit, the more non-profit means that anything not spent on operations goes to perks and obscene salaries for the top people in the organization. “

Having served as a not-for-profit executive earlier in my career (I was brought in as a turn- around exec.), I can fully attest to this. What differentiates a C-corp from a 501(c)3 is that the C-Corp must share its profits with shareholders, while “not-for-profit” 501(c)3s get to keep it all for themselves.

When my job was done, I took a long hot shower and vowed never, ever to work for a so-called not-for-profit again.

Danny, the obvious reason that the Left is against corporate “greed” is because socialist greed means only the top elite gets all the money, and none of it is shown to the stockholders, because there aren’t any. Whereas corporations have books on account to show profits, earnings, and expenses, the NGOs have only one thing: expenditures needed, like parties, drugs, prostitutes, and what not, all bundled under essential services.

Nonprofits also are usually extremely political places, in which great deference to whoever is running the organization is expected. Contrarians frequently are able to succeed, if they’re good, in profit-seeking corporations; in nonprofits, not so much. The coin of the realm is not results but conformity.

Marica

David said: Nonprofits also are usually extremely political places,

I think this has changed a lot in my lifetime.

I’m 52. I have vague recollections of really horrible times when men were routinely paid more than women. That was a time when men did not contribute to child-rearing. (I am thankful that my dad was a standard deviation out. I got to help in his store.)

When my father retired, and he & Mom moved south, it didn’t take long before Dad started shopping around for something to do. Something productive, or contributive. (This is a very real phenomena. I have a story about my Father-in-Law, and my Uncle-in-Law.) Dad was presented with several worthy choices. I remember talking with him about this. He made a semi-Utilitarian choice.

And he had a great time. He loved what he did. He liked the people he worked with. Their work had a purpose. They recognized problems, and they thought they could address them. I really got the sense from Dad that what motivated you to be there was secondary to the fact that you were there.
So if what you say, “Nonprofits also are usually extremely political places.” is true, and I know it is, than things have changed.

Charles Martel

There are non-profits and there are non-profits.

The Salvation Army is a non-profit, about as honest and lean and mean as can be—nobody who runs it is rich, or ever will be, and the organization returns more than 90 percent of each dollar it receives in the form of direct aid to the poor and homeless.

NPR is a non-profit, a smug, self-absorbed, white-dominated machine for producing the means by which unctuous, tweedy-sounding dilletantes can buy a new Volvo each year and send those children they didn’t abort to designer tumbling classes.

Non-profits are like people. Some are wonderful and some are ones you’d send 50 miles the wrong way if they stopped to ask you for directions.

Mike Devx

> NPR is a non-profit, a smug, self-absorbed, white-dominated machine for producing the means by which unctuous, tweedy-sounding dilletantes can buy a new Volvo each year and send those children they didn’t abort to designer tumbling classes.

Perfection, Charles!

When I’m driving down the road and I’ve got my radio on ‘scan’, I always know when it hits NPR without even looking at the station display. I hear the “unctuous, tweedy- sounding dilletante” voice of whatever host is on at that time, and I think, “NPR, ugh.”

Marcia…I agree with above comments that there are different kinds of nonprofits. OPERATIONAL nonprofits actually do something; POLICY nonprofits tell people what to do and/or lobby to get the government to do something. On the average, operational nonprofits are less political than policy nonprofits.

When I’m listening to Japanese voice actors, sooner or later I’ll find someone that I remember because the voice is too similar. But since I never look at the cast listings for things like VNs or animes, it takes awhile for this thing to bug me enough to go check.

This is a far more positive experience than Devx’s stumbling into NPR on the broadcast waves.

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